


Our Own Clock

by shawskankredemption



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: M/M, Mental Health Issues, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-29 20:28:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1009723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shawskankredemption/pseuds/shawskankredemption
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There needs to be a clock for you both. Like the War Clock, except it’s counting up the arguments. How many you’ve won, how many he has. How many times he lost his temper first, and how many times you started it.<br/>Because you always start it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Own Clock

**Author's Note:**

> I usually post all my fic on tumblr but a kind follower suggested I try AO3 as well. I hope you enjoy! :)

There needs to be a clock for you both. Like the War Clock, except it’s counting up the arguments. How many you’ve won, how many he has. How many times he lost his temper first, and how many times you started it.   
Because you always start it.  
  
The first time he counts aloud in German you think it’ll be funny to interrupt him, confusing him with different numbers.  _Vierzehn!_   _Neunundneunzig!_  The second time you do it he switches to French without so much as a scowl.  _Vingt-deux, seize_. As if he’d just opened another compartment in his mind in order to ignore you better. You don’t speak French, but that’s when you think you love him.   
  
You know you love him the first time you hear him swear at you under his breath.   
  
The world’s trodden on him, a little, you think. Social interaction is not his forte. You know he would’ve been bullied at school. He dresses like Kennedy was shot yesterday and you’re pretty sure he cuts his own fucking hair.   
  
But you do think he’s beautiful. You love the sharpness of him, the dark eyes with bitten lips. And you know he hides his kindness behind a crotchety temper, and you can see how his introversion overshadows his generosity.   
  
It makes sense that you feel a sting when you overhear him on the phone late one night. He calls someone  _‘darling’_   in the sort of voice that you’d pour soft into the shell of an ear.  _Darling_. It hurts, because you hadn’t realised that he had anyone to speak to like that.   
  
But later, you know you’re stupid. It makes sense that someone else would see what you see.   
You’ve never seen a photo of her, you don’t know her name but you’re sure she’s beautiful.   
  
You’re stupid. You are an idiot, and you try everything, absolutely everything.  One day you ignore him. The next day you annoy him more. You throw yourself into the work because that’s why you’re goddamn here, right? You’re obsessed. You turn the music louder, he complains. You turn it down briefly and then up again. You push, push, _push_ , and he pushes back like it’s a schoolyard fight.   
  
He’s the other side of your shitty coin and sometimes you’re just so furious that he hasn’t seen it yet.   
  
So you push it down, and work harder and harder until something breaks a little one night and you find yourself flying. He’s the one to talk you down. You haven’t so much as blinked in two nights straight and your ideas are inked right in front of you in the air. There’s something humming and you’re talking to yourself, but then there’s his voice and it’s a railing, springing up for you to lean on.    
 _Newton, you need some sleep, this does not make any sense_.  _You are not making any sense. Newton, listen to me._  
  
It was the first time he laid a hand on you, his fingertips stern at your back. And then his face swims into view and you’ve never seen him look like that before. It is concern, and he steers you all the way to your bedside.   
  
You don’t wake up for a day. When you see him again you try and thank him and he replies wryly  _that’s what friends do_  and you’re taken aback because you certainly didn’t think you were friends.   
  
The years crawl by and it never goes away, and you wish you had that goddamn clock just for yourself, now. To know how much time you’ve been pining. How many times you’ve caught yourself in a daydream. It’s a waste of time. A huge waste of time.   
  
The night the war is won, you slip down to the lab after about a dozen beers and find him there, clearing away equations. You’re afraid you might do something stupid like kiss him, so you try to say something sharp and accusatory but it’s blunted by the drink and all your words fold in on themselves.  And you can feel the blood on your face from your nose but then there’s the salt of your tears as well because you’re so drunk, and it’s even worse now because he saw the inside of your head earlier, and you just can’t do this anymore, you won’t stand it, not even for a fucking minute, and now he has stopped to look at you and you’re sliding onto the floor beside the desk, in the chalk and the kaiju ooze like a little boy hiding from the world.   
  
And then you hear it. It’s the sound of his cane dropping to his floor, and with some difficulty he gets down to sit beside you, and he puts his clean hanky up to your nose.   
You’re quiet, and he is too. But after a few minutes when the blood stops he takes the hanky away and his hand rests on the inside of your arm and he just says sadly,  _I know, Newton. I know._   _I saw it in the drift. I’m very sorry._  
  
Through the fog you find yourself knitting an apology, and your head falls to rest on his shoulder, and your heart doesn’t feel like it’s been torn out, you’re just grateful for his kindness and relieved that it’s over, and it’s the best you could have hoped for, given everything. You sit there together for an hour, and you know the next day things will be different and things will be easier.   
  
Maybe if you’d had a clock, you would have stopped it right then. 


End file.
